Super fan ‘Mr. ORNG’ embraces NBA Finals
Patrick Battillo works for Target, coaches a high school basketball team and expects to earn his doctorate degree by next May.
When the Phoenix Suns play basketball, he’s no longer Coach Battillo, or Patrick, or a doctorate student.
He’s MR. ORNG.
It’s a name he has had since dressing all in orange for a Suns game for the first time in a 2010 playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs. That season the Suns reached the Western Conference
finals, before losing to Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Little did he know then, he wouldn’t experience another Suns playoff game until this year. But he stood by the Suns through the next decade of turmoil, the coaching changes, the personnel turnover and losing records.
He even had MR. ORNG trademarked so nobody else could use it. He couldn’t trademark the full spelling, “Orange.”
He’s easily recognized at games, the guy with orange leggings, orange Mohawk-style wig, orange glasses, who is now holding a Rally The Valley sign for every playoff game during the Suns’ run towards an NBA championship.
“Someone asked me, ‘Are you the Suns in 4 guy’? “said Battillo, the head boys basketball coach at his alma mater Peoria High School. “I said, ‘No, I’ve been here 11 years as MR. ORNG. That’s the not the route I’m going to go.’ “
It’s not always easy being MR. ORNG.
One time, in Chicago, where the Suns were taking on the Bulls, he said he got silly stringed with two cans all over his orange tuxedo by Benny the Bull. It was the first of a back-to-back he was attending with the Suns playing the Knicks the next night.
“I had to fly the next morning to New York to Madison Square Garden,” he said. “I had to get a company to clean my tux in three hours. So that part was interesting. A lot of the fans were aggressive there.”
He’s been a fixture, but says he hasn’t tried to profit off his alter ego. He has paid for every game ticket (he tries to be at least somewhere in the first 20 rows not far from the Suns bench), and every flight for road games he’s attended.
Even now, receiving speaking engagements from youth to retirement communities as MR. ORNG, he says he takes no money. He doesn’t work for the Suns, he’s on his own for everything.
“As long as it can fit my schedule, I do it all,” he said. “I haven’t taken money for appearances or things of that nature that would help supplement the ticket income piece. It’s about those opportunities than, ‘Hey, I want to make a buck.’ “
Becoming Mr. ORNG
It takes time to dress into character, but he’s been able to get ready in 20 minutes, cutting almost half the time it took in the beginning to become MR. ORNG. He spray paints and body paints himself orange.
He’s seen every Suns live game since the 2010 Western Conference Finals in the color orange and has stayed in character since while at games.
“Winning was what was in our DNA,” said Battillo, who moved to the Valley from New York when he was 7, four months before the Suns took on the Michael Jordan Bulls in the NBA Finals in 1993. “Never finishing it off and getting a title, but always having playoffs and being a contender. That drought became worse and worse. Just missing the playoffs.”
He recalls the final game of the 2014 season when the Suns won 48 games but missed out on the playoffs by one to the Dallas Mavericks.
“The drought got worse and it was so low on the number of wins we’d get,” Battillo said. “Turnover. And the culture fell off. The fans, there was like nobody in the arena, compared to where it is now.”
Through all of the bad times he went to Suns games, eventually with the arrival of Devin Booker, and drafting of Deandre Ayton No. 1 n 2018. When the team won just 19 games (second-lowest in franchise history only to their 1968-69 expansion season) just two seasons ago, Battillo never considered hanging up his orange game persona.
“To me it’s a passion and a loyalty,” he said. “It’s the same thing I tell my athletes. We’re getting beat or blown out, we’re still going to do everything we can to execute. I don’t care if we’re up 40, if we’re not executing the right way, that’s not a win. But if we’re down 10 but we’re doing everything we can to fight through it, that’s what it’s about.
“It’s the same thing for the Suns. We have guys in uniform. If we’re winning 20 that year or winning 50 or 60, they’re out there putting their heart and soul into it,” he said. “They’re getting paid a good amount of money but it’s still a sport that I support. And that’s my team. So whoever has that jersey on, they’re there night in and night out. And I have to be there, too..”
His star player at Peoria, junior point guard Andrew Camacho, is impressed by his coach’s commitment to Mr. ORNG.
“I think Coach Pat being a super fan for the Suns shows a lot of hard work and dedication,” Camacho said. “Coach Pat balances his work, his job as coach at Peoria, and being a Phoenix Suns super fan really well.
“That shows extreme hard work and discipline that spreads to those around him.”
Payback to Battillo, he said, has been having guys like Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Tyson Chandler and now Booker recognize him and appreciate his fandom.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think (Suns players) would acknowledge that and care,” he said about his character. “I thought the organization would be like, ‘Hey, you’re an awesome fan and we want to get you involved.’ It’s been the opposite. I pay for my ticket. I travel on my own. I fly on my own. And I do that because I care. I love giving back to the community. I love seeing the smiles on people’s faces when I see them out there.”
On his Avondale block, everybody knows who MR. ORNG is. He has sliver streamers from his tree in the front yard. Inside, there aren’t a lot of Suns ornaments, other than the foam fingers and the bobble head dolls in his bedroom. He has a row of them on his chest of drawers, from Connie Hawkins to Booker to 88-year-old radio play-by-play announcer Al McCoy, who has called the Suns’ 1976, 1993 and now 2021 NBA Finals appearances.
His passion for Suns can be found in his closet with his various orange outfits including an orange Fedora that he wears with the orange tux.
“Anything I can do to bring a smile to someone’s face, that’s what it’s all about,” he said.
The hard part now is getting a ticket that won’t cause him to mortgage the house. Battillo said as a season ticket holder, he was able to secure a Game 1 ticket 16 rows up for $950, and was looking at about $900 for Game 2.
He’s got his flight booked for Game 3 in Milwaukee, but he’s waiting to see if the price for a ticket to the game comes down from $1,600 for a seat about 20 rows from the floor. IF nothing else, he’ll take a nose-bleed seat, just to get in.
No matter, he’ll stand out in his row with everybody knowing where his loyalty belongs.